Things are getting more and more interesting in the drama to replace Obama in the Senate.

Apparently, Harry Reid’s on tape in conversations with Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich shortly before his arrest insisting no black replace Obama in the Senate. Reid wanted either Tammy Duckworth or Lisa Madigan, since Reid believed (correctly) that Jesse Jackson Jr., Emil Jones, Danny Davis, or other black politicians won’t be able to win election in their own right in 2010.

The other day when Congressman Bobby Rush whipped out the race card to pressure acceptance of Roland Burris as Obama’s Senate replacement, it seemed like Rush was just reading from the successful Obama playbook, and race-baiting without cause for political gain.

Now, it looks like Rush was really onto something, and Reid is doing everything he can to keep a black Senator off the table…because Reid wants to hold that seat in 2010 and does not believe a black Senator will hold it. Based purely on the color of that Senator’s skin.

Which makes Reid, in a sense, racist…and the parallel between him and George Wallace, as used by Rush, just got more credible. Threatening to bar Burris from the Senate with armed guards is indeed very similar to Wallace’s use of armed guards to bar black students from schools. Just because Burris is black, and does not fit into Reid’s 2010 plans.

Tammy Duckworth’s not guaranteed a Senate seat in 2010 if she ran after an appointment.  The Democrats in Illinois tried to force Duckworth into Congress in 2006, and that failed. She’s a very nice woman who served her country bravely in Iraq, but she’s never going to set the world on fire. She’s a mediocre speaker at best, has trouble revving up crowds, does not command a large political following, and would be something of a joke in Illinois if people weren’t so afraid of being accused of making fun of her disabilities. When most people here hear her name, they say, “Oh, that poor woman,” and feel bad about her loss of limbs, but don’t necessarily translate that sympathy into a burning zeal to vote for her.

Lisa Madigan, from where we sit, is already running for Governor, a role the Madigan family prefers she fill — as, with Mike Madigan the current Speaker of the Illinois House, that’s much better for the Madigans, where they’d essentially control two branches of government in the state. So Reid’s efforts to bully her into the Senate are silly.

And Democrats’ claims to be the champions of black voters are just plain ridiculous. Blacks aren’t even being CONSIDERED for Senate replacements in Delaware, New York, or Colorado. Why not? Surely there must be a black candidate SOMEWHERE in all of those states.

But, evidently, Harry Reid doesn’t want any blacks to serve in the Senate, for whatever reason, so what does that say about Democrats?

Not that anyone seems to care, in the lingering haze of hopium, but it’s there for you to see it.